


In the Hollow Tree

by ishie



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-03
Updated: 2010-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 22:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The notes were hard to decipher, many of them written by hands shaky with too much coffee or adrenaline or fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Telesilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telesilla/gifts).



> Written for telesilla, in the [2009 sticksandsnark](http://sticksandsnark.livejournal.com/), for the prompt: "AU, Teyla and Rodney investigate supernatural events (cameos by other SGA characters a plus!)"
> 
> HUGE THANK YOUs go to aelora, cidercupcakes, and julie_reads for looking this over at various stages and inkdot for putting up with my flailing (♥♥♥♥), and to The X-Files, Harry Potter, and Arrested Development for some blink-and-you'll-miss-'em references. (HUGE APOLOGIES go to Calgary and the entire field of ornithology for all mistakes and misinformation in the story - the closest I've ever been to either is Google.) Title from _The Owl_ by Barry Cornwall (Bryan Waller Procter).

"Weir wants to see us as soon as we get in to the office this morning," Teyla announced when Rodney stumbled into the kitchen and stuffed a stack of files into his laptop bag.

He ignored her and shuffled toward the coffeemaker.

"We are out of the Kona beans," she said as he popped the top off his travel mug. "All that was left was the -"

"Oh God, don't tell me I have to drink your 3-in-1," Rodney groaned.

Teyla pretended to turn her attention back to the newspaper so he would not see her smile. "You do not," she told him. "The Maxwell House is in ample supply."

He beamed at her like she had just admitted to loving nothing more than organizing field notes into something approaching comprehensibility and filled his mug to the brim. The next few minutes were punctuated with the rustle of the paper and his mumbling to himself as he checked voicemail. When the timer dinged on the microwave, Teyla crossed the room and pulled two bowls from the cupboard.

Rodney dropped into a chair at the table, turned off his cell phone, and grabbed a spoon when she set his bowl in front of him. "Radek got the results back on Jiménez. D'you think I have time to swing by the lab before we see Weir?" he asked through a mouthful of oatmeal.

"It is better that we do not risk it, I think. Her email was very tersely worded."

He humphed and stirred more syrup into his bowl. "Any idea _why_ she wants us first thing?"

"The email did not say."

Teyla tried not to roll her eyes in exasperation when he pointed his spoon at her and cried, "Ha! I bet it's about that requisition you filed to replace the cedar bark. I told you it was a mistake to have offered so much to that shaman."

"I do not wish to revisit that conversation, Rodney. We have both said more than enough on the subject."

To his credit, he looked somewhat chastened and redoubled his efforts to inhale his breakfast. Teyla followed his lead, albeit at a much more sedate pace, and before long he was rising from his seat to collect their empty dishes. When he leaned over her shoulder to pick up her bowl, she laid her hand over his and squeezed. He said nothing but dropped a kiss on the top of her head, apparently content to let bygones be bygones for the moment. She topped up both of their travel mugs and switched off the coffeemaker while he loaded the dishwasher.

Getting out of the house proved to be as hectic as ever with Rodney rushing around looking for things he had somehow misplaced in the ten hours since he had left the office. Teyla backed the car out of the garage and idled next to the back door for a full five minutes before giving in to her irritation and honking the horn. Rodney emerged less than thirty seconds later, a flurry of papers and jangling keys as he wedged himself into the passenger seat and tried to slide his bag into the backseat without braining either of them or upsetting the coffee he had clutched in one hand.

Traffic was light on the drive to the outskirts of Pegasus City, with most of the cars headed in the opposite direction - toward downtown and the west side, where innumerable office parks had sprung up in the last few years. She did not care for the bland beige edifices and sprawling parking lots where trees and meadows had stretched between horizons, but her distaste for them was nothing compared to the scorn Rodney showed whenever they drove past on the way to or from the airport.

_Rodney_ , who had spent most of their first night in the new house in a snit about how many autumn leaves carpeted the grass in the backyard before she had distracted him to the point of no longer remembering what a rake was. Sometimes she wondered how she had fallen in love with such a prickly and fussy man -- then he would rant about clear-cutting and destroyed habitats. The look on his face was more than a reminder; it was a reason to fall for him all over again.

She kept the radio on low as it cycled through the satellite news stations. She did not want to alarm Rodney unduly, but she felt uneasy about the summons from Weir. She shared a somewhat comfortable and friendly relationship with the head of Atlantea Investigations, as she did with most of the upper echelon of the Starr/Gates Group, and early-morning emails never boded well. While there had been nothing of interest in any of the usual websites nor in the newspaper that morning, she felt certain that whatever awaited them would be unwelcome, to say the least.

No matter what happened, though, she did not regret the cedar bark.

Once they arrived at the Atlantea building, Rodney made only one protest about stopping to speak with Radek as they waited for the elevator. It was a half-hearted attempt that signaled to her that he was as worried as she about the meeting. He tried to distract them both with idle chatter on the ride up to the twelfth floor. Just before the doors opened, Teyla let him goad her into an argument about the vending machines in the break room.

Chuck, Weir's assistant, was away from his desk when they arrived. Rodney looked ready to bolt at any minute, so she wrapped one hand around his forearm and knocked with the other.

Instead of Chuck or Weir like she would have expected, John Sheppard opened the door. Teyla dug her nails into Rodney's arm as a warning to keep quiet. After the last time the two of them had attempted to out-stubborn each other, she did not want to take any chances. The interns were still gossiping about the fallout from the Arcturus case, when Rodney had violated all manner of company directives in order to destroy a nest of chupacabra, taking out most of a sacred burial ground with it.

Weir rose behind her desk and smiled, waving them to sit in the chairs immediately opposite her. "How are you settling in at the new house?" she asked.

"More to the point," Sheppard drawled when neither of them answered right away, "how have you managed not to kill your husband yet?"

Rodney blew out an irritated breath, already swelling with either indignation on her behalf or at the insinuation that he was anything less than the perfect person with whom to share living quarters.

"I think that will remain my secret, John," Teyla answered, quickly, before Rodney could work himself up to a reply. "Although, I will say that the household chores flowchart has been a great help."

Sheppard looked pained and Weir hid a smirk behind her hand. Rodney, on the other hand, puffed out his chest and gave her one of his lopsided smiles.

Before he could get started down the path of bragging and baiting Sheppard, Teyla asked, "Why have you called us in today?"

Both Sheppard and Weir quickly composed themselves. Weir shuffled through some papers on her desk, then slid two bulging folders toward them. Rodney leaned forward to take both, handing one to Teyla as he sat back. She flipped through the file, ignoring the pages of notes for the photographs paper-clipped to the back cover. They were all of cars abandoned on roadsides and in ditches, with the driver's and passenger doors flung wide open. In all but one, a single trail of blood was smeared across to the other side of the road and onto the verge where it stopped as abruptly as if someone were dragged into another vehicle. However, none of the photos showed any evidence of a second car, or of any tire tracks at all through the grass.

"We have a bit of a sticky situation," Weir said as Teyla flipped through the images. "I received a call very late last night from Ambassador Caldwell-"

Rodney snapped his fingers. "Caldwell, why do I know that name?"

"He's the guy we did the exorcism on a few years back," Sheppard reminded him. "You remember, President Hayes' buddy with the impressive sailor's vocabulary? He's the ambassador to Canada now."

"And he needs our help." Weir pressed a button on her keyboard and swiveled the monitor so everyone could see it. A map of North America filled the screen, dotted with blue and orange from Coeur d'Alene to Bismarck and north into Canada all the way to the Yukon.

"The blue dots represent cases Caldwell thinks are involved; the orange represents everything that Cadman's team has dug up that fits the same parameters, though those are obviously unconfirmed at this point."

As they watched, another swath of orange dots popped up across Saskatchewan.

"Wait, hold on. All of the disappearances are married couples?" Rodney asked as he looked up from the notes he was reading.

His voice rose a little at the end of the question and Teyla snapped her gaze to him. His knuckles were white on the hand holding his copy of the file, but his face was rapidly turning red. She flipped quickly back to the front of her own dossier and scanned through the handwritten notes.

"Not all of them," said Weir. "But a statistically significant portion of the cases Caldwell identified involve married couples, yes."

"Look," Sheppard interjected. "With Ford going out on recuperation leave and Dex not scheduled to transfer back from the Sateda office until next month, we already needed to shake up duty assignments a bit. This case just lights a little bigger of a fire under our asses."

"You are not going to use us as bait," Teyla said, keeping her voice as even and mild as she could. The notes were hard to decipher, many of them written by hands shaky with too much coffee or adrenaline or fear. The lab reports were easier to follow: copious amounts of blood from only one donor were left at each scene. In each case, there was enough blood present that the victim's survival without immediate medical attention was unlikely.

She looked up to see Weir and Sheppard exchange a look before Weir spoke again.

"I realize what this looks like but we absolutely are not using you as bait, Teyla," she said. "The two of you are the most senior investigators we have on staff at the moment and, before your marriage, you made a pretty damn good team. Now, you know I don't like to send you out in the field together, but for this we have no other choice."

Sheppard took over when Weir seemed to falter under Teyla's stare. "Chuck's taking Beckett, Bates, and Lorne to the airport right now. They'll establish a base of operations in Coeur d'Alene - that's where the first American case happened - and then fan out through the area to start digging in on the backgrounds. You two are going to head up to the Great White North to come at it from that end. McKay's dual citizenship will get you both in without raising any red flags, thankfully. We're flying so far below the radar on this one it's not even funny."

"Why?" Teyla asked.

Another look passed between their supervisors and Teyla was hard-pressed not to turn to Rodney to see if he looked any more comfortable with the situation than she felt.

"The RCMP and the FBI are operating under the assumption that we're looking at a ritualized serial killer striking in both countries, or possibly a pair working in tandem," Sheppard said.

Rodney scoffed. "That's hardly an unfair assumption given the circumstances of the disappearances."

This time, Weir spoke without looking at either of them. "Based on trace evidence found in a handful of the vehicles, they believe it's Michael Kenmore."

\---

"I guess it explains why Caldwell called in the cavalry," Rodney said, finally.

They were sitting in his office on the eighth floor, ostensibly to go through the files in more detail and begin working on their itinerary for the case. Instead, they were sitting side by side on the narrow couch and staring out the window. The remains of their picked-over lunches were scattered across the low table in front of them.

Teyla murmured something that she hoped he would take as agreement and laid her head down on his shoulder. "I had hoped that we had heard the last of Michael by now. Burying him twice should be enough."

"Look, we don't know that it _is_ Michael doing this. There're a thousand different things that could be responsible: shapeshifter, pontianak, adhene, spring-heeled jack, tavara.... We could even be looking at a standard demon taking the guise of various departed souls." Rodney shifted deeper into the couch and wound an arm around her waist. "They've only found Michael's hair and fingerprints in a few of the cars, and it looks like the samples were pretty degraded. Maybe he had some contact with them in one of his last two incarnations, or it's possible that-"

She closed her eyes and let his words settle around her. She was comforted by his resistance to the simplest explanation. In all the time they had worked and lived together, he had been a strict adherent to Occam's razor. For him to discount the prevailing theory meant that he was troubled by the lack of evidence, even if it meant reaching for a more outlandish explanation. His intuition - although he would hardly describe it as such, preferring as he did to rely on facts he could prove - had led them out of danger more than once.

Reluctantly, she sat forward and took up the case-file again when he finally ran out of words. She flipped through the photographs slowly, willing any sort of a clue to leap out at her from among the smears of blood and the blank, empty car windows. Rodney finished off the remaining half of his sandwich while he looked over her shoulder.

She withstood his chewing in her ear as long as she could, then reminded him he still had to go downstairs to get the Jiménez results from Radek before all hell broke loose.

Rodney rushed out of the office then raced back in long enough to steal the last handful of fries from her lunch and press a kiss to her forehead. "Call me when you're ready to go!" he said as he took off again.

She stayed in his office for nearly two more hours, consulting with Cadman in Research and rearranging the case notes and photos so that she could review them in chronological order. The earliest cases in Caldwell's dossier had been investigated by the local law enforcement more than six months earlier; the RCMP did not get involved until the disappearances moved into another province, the FBI still later once someone realized they were working the same string of cases on both sides of the border. In addition, Cadman and her team had already found dozens more that predated all of them, some stretching back into the late 1970s and as far south as Flagstaff.

Since Weir and Sheppard were sending them to Canada, Teyla decided to concentrate only on the official investigations there. The trail started near downtown Calgary and swept north by northeast. The frequency of the disappearances was inconsistent: the first five had happened in quick succession but between the later instances were lulls of several weeks. She logged in to the network and entered the dates and locations into HERMIOD, Dr. Novak's new pattern recognition database. If there was any sense to be made of the information, any way to use it to predict where the next victims might be, Novak would find it.

Chuck came in at some point and handed her two packets filled with all their necessary paperwork: gun permits, car and hotel reservations, and their passports. She turned down his offer of a ride to the airport when she realized that neither she nor Rodney had their travel bags with them: Rodney's was lying at the bottom of the basement stairs where he had left it when he came home earlier in the week and she still had not repacked from her last trip. Chuck pulled a PDA from his pocket and changed their flight reservations to the following morning, then walked with her down to the printer to pick up the new tickets.

After a final check with Cadman, during which the researcher uploaded the bulk of their gathered information to Teyla and Rodney's laptops, she made her way to the weapons locker and then put in a requisition for more specialized supplies to be delivered to them in Calgary. Halling did not bat an eye when she handed over the five-page itemized list, and she thanked for the umpteenth time whatever had brought him to Atlantea in the first place. He had a gift for procurement; she did not know a single investigator who did not have a story of how he had saved them from certain doom with an overnight shipment of some obscure artifact.

On her way down to the third floor lab, she stopped off in her own office long enough to grab spare laptop batteries and the camera bag. She ignored the red message light blinking on her phone. There would be plenty of time to catch up on administrative minutiae later.

Radek and Rodney were engrossed in the flashing lights of a boxy display when she knocked on the observation window. Rodney leaped to his feet and rushed over to key the door open for her, upsetting a small wastebasket that a lab assistant quickly righted.

"I apologize for taking him away from you again so soon," she said to Radek.

"Is no problem," he replied with a quick smile that caused his glasses to slide down his nose. "The device will still be here when you return."

" _If_ we return," Rodney muttered, not quite under his breath.

"Yes, yes, _if_. We are all very familiar with your standard what-would-they-do-without-me routine, Rodney. Now go, get out! Some of us have work to do while you are out chasing monsters."

"Ha!" Rodney barked, and waved a finger at the room at large.

Teyla pushed him out of the lab before he could say something to bring the wrath of Radek and his assistants down on their heads.

"I forgot my laptop," he said as they stepped into the elevator. "We should probably go back up."

"I have it," she assured him.

"Plane tickets? My passport?" He swallowed quickly when she gave him a look. "Right, of course you have all of that. What about our marriage license? Do you think you'll need that in case you get stopped by immigration?"

"My passport and identification have already been updated to reflect the change, as you should remember from this exact conversation we had three weeks ago when you drove me to the airport."

"Oh. Right." He lapsed into silence when the doors opened again, letting them out into underground parking garage. "What time's our flight?"

"We depart at 0800 hours tomorrow with a layover in Minneapolis, which will put us in Calgary just before lunch local time. Chuck has already made the car and hotel reservations for us."

"And you're sure you have all the documentation we'll need-"

"Rodney," she said with deliberate calm as she unlocked the trunk and started to deposit their bags inside, "there will be plenty of time for you to second-guess me before this case is over. I suggest you do not use it all up now, before we have even begun."

"Sorry, sorry. I'm just... trying very hard not to betray my cool exterior right now."

She turned to him and took his face between her hands, leaning forward to rest her forehead against his. "I know," she said and rubbed her thumbs over his temples. "I am doing much the same."

"You're a lot better at it than I am."

Teyla drew back just far enough to brush a kiss across his lips. "As in so many things," she teased.

\---

Their flights were uneventful, if overlong and more than a little boring. Turbulence had Rodney scrambling for extra airsick bags as they flew over Lake Michigan, right on schedule. He ended up using them all to jot down notes when Teyla deflected his attention by asking a question about the weaknesses of tavaras. She ignored the curious stare of the man sitting in the aisle seat and prodded Rodney into reviewing the supply list she had given to Halling to see if she had left out anything vital.

The packets Chuck had prepared indicated that a rental car would be waiting for them when they arrived in Calgary. She let Rodney lead the way, preferring to keep an eye on their surroundings as he navigated through the terminal and out through the departures area. The wind was bitter and cold with the scent of impending snow when they crossed the road and went into the car rental center.

The line inside was mercifully short and within moments they were cramming their baggage into the absurdly small trunk of the car. Teyla unfolded a map of Calgary and the surrounding countryside that she had already marked, using a printout of the display they had seen on Weir's screen. She studied the meandering route that would take them past most of the crime scenes without much overlap or doubling back.

"I think we should start with the couple who disappeared after leaving the bird sanctuary," she told Rodney, who was still cursing and trying to fit their bags into the trunk. "Of the cases identified so far, they predate all of the others in this country."

"Fine, whatever you want to do," he said and pulled her laptop case out again. He laid it on the ground at his feet then went back to studying the jumble of luggage.

She watched as he heaved another heavy suitcase into the trunk and struggled to slide it between two others, as far back as it would go. The wind was picking up, bringing with it scattered flakes of snow and heavy gray clouds unfurling overhead, but his neck and hairline were slick with sweat. Teyla unlocked the car and tucked the map under the sun visor on the driver's side, then hefted the last of the smaller bags into the back seat. With a sigh, Rodney conceded defeat and slammed the trunk lid shut. She tossed the keys at him over the roof of the car and walked around to the passenger side.

"I get to drive?"

"You are the native here. It seems only fair."

"But you never let me drive!" He grinned at her over the top of the car, his whole face alight.

It was easy to smile back at him, to delight in his joy at so simple a thing and to ignore the creeping sense of unease that still plagued her. He bounced a little in his seat and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and dashboard as he careened the car around corners and down narrow side streets. A glance every now and again at the map she had spread across her lap kept them moving in the right direction, though he pretended to be tapping into some latent Canadian gift of navigation that led him unerringly to their destination.

There were few cars in the lot once they reached the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. Rodney circled around the lot in order to park near the entrance to the visitor center. He fidgeted impatiently while she unlocked the weapons case but did not protest when she handed him his revolver in a shoulder holster that would fit under his jacket, then strapped on her own.

When they walked into the long, low building, they were greeted by a plump woman wearing a blue cardigan and a sunny smile. The name printed on the volunteer pass around her neck was Ann and there was a gaudy gold owl-shaped pin adorning her lapel. She tried to hand them each a map of the grounds.

"Oh, we're not here for bird-watching," Rodney told her as he barrelled past her outstretched hand.

Teyla accepted the map from the confused woman and resisted the urge to follow Rodney across the room and kick him. "I am very sorry. Long flights make him even crankier than normal."

"I heard that!" Rodney cried from the other side of the room where he was examining a bulletin board covered with photos and a map of the Americas.

Ann laughed, a high, shrill giggle, and waved off her words. "Don't you apologize for him, honey! I've got one of my own at home and I know full well that would wind up a full-time job."

"I am Teyla, and that is my husband, Rodney. We are working on a travel book," Teyla explained, reaching back into her past for a cover story that had served her many times over. "A man we met in Cape Breton last month told us what a wonderful preserve this is, and since we were already planning to visit Banff, we thought we would take the time to stop here first." She pulled a slim silver case from her jacket pocket and thumbed the power switch on. "Do you mind if I record our conversation? I find it much more convenient than deciphering my shorthand."

"Oh, sure, of course! But maybe you'd want to talk to David, he's our naturalist. He could give you a much better picture of the place than I can."

"I am sure that is not at all true!" Teyla assured her. "We are more interested in what goes on behind the scenes in places like these. The focus of our book is more on the people one meets while traveling than on the places one goes. Have you been working here for very long?"

Ann coughed and said, "I've been volunteering for more than ten years now. You're lucky we were open today, though. Thursdays are my usual day to help out but I've been- We've all had to cover extra days recently. If someone can't make it in, we end up having to stay closed for the day. Not an ideal way to run the place but we do what we can."

She raised a hand to fiddle with the pin on her cardigan. Teyla glanced down at the device in her hand. It doubled as both a voice-activated recorder, as she had led Ann to believe, and as an energy sensor which did many things she did not fully understand and which both Radek and Rodney were too impatient to explain. The LED on the face of the device was green but blinking. While she was not an expert on the device, she did know that when she saw the blinking green light, it was safe to press harder.

"Why is that?" she asked. "Have you had a change in staff?"

"You could say that, I guess. Well, that was a couple of months ago really, but one of our full-time interns just started school again and the education coordinator is on paternity leave. The schedule's gotten a little bit more hectic that it was even after.... We've had to close the center a few days here and there when we can't find anyone to cover shifts."

Teyla wanted to push but Ann was pressing her lips together and continually playing with the pin on her sweater. In any case, it was not strictly necessary: she had the bare bones of the story in one of the folders tucked into her carry-on bag. Margaret Anderson had been a volunteer at the park, and she and her husband were the first disappearance in Canada that could be tied to the others. No one had reported them missing until she failed to show up for her next shift at Inglewood almost a week later. By the time police found their car, it had been stripped down to the sheet metal.

Instead, she commiserated with Ann, telling her a mostly fabricated story about being made to do more than what she considered her full share and did not bother to correct the woman's assumption that the culprit had been Rodney. She asked a few more questions about the facility and the volunteers' duties, attempting to lull her into answering more probing questions. She need not have bothered; her every attempt at turning the conversation back in the direction of the missing woman or any suspicious activities on the grounds was met with an uncomfortable silence or an awkward deflection. When Ann coughed again, sounding as if she had something caught in her throat, she wondered if perhaps the woman were recovering from an illness - it would explain her distracted air, at least. But no matter the reason, between the frustrating course of their conversation and Rodney's occasional interruptions in the form of questions yelled across the room, Teyla was ready to declare the visit a loss and move on.

She checked the device again; this time the light was a solid amber, giving her an excuse to retreat. She thanked Ann and called to Rodney, who had almost completed a full circuit of the room.

He sighed impatiently and cocked a thumb over his shoulder at the bulletin board displays as he joined them by the information desk. "Do you have anything that's not so ... childish?"

"Perhaps we should see some of the trails before it gets too late," Teyla said before he could further insult their surroundings. When he started to protest, she held up the silver case so he could see the amber light and said, "I have run out of room on my recorder and I fear I have monopolized Ann's time enough as it is."

Ann said goodbye cheerfully enough as they went back out into the cold, gray day, but Teyla saw her hurry toward the back of the building as soon as the door closed behind them.

"The yellow light's interesting. What were you asking her about?" Rodney asked as they started down one of the well-marked trails that wound down toward the river.

Teyla hesitated before answering. She was not sure when the device had first displayed the warning light because she had been too focused on getting Ann to talk about more than black-capped chickadees and visiting schoolchildren.

"I am certain that she is hiding something," she said, sidestepping his question, "though I could not even begin to guess at what that may be. If time permits, perhaps I will return on my own later to see if she is more forthcoming when you are not with me. This may come as a surprise but I do not believe she likes you."

"She's probably just intimidated by my manly physique," he said airily as he scanned the woods on his side of the path.

Teyla laughed as she bumped her shoulder into Rodney's arm and reached out to take his hand. "Yes, I am certain that is the case."

He gave her a lopsided smile, then said, "We can pull the data from the sensor-recorder tonight and send it to Radek. If her reluctance to talk has to do with a spirit or something here, there should be indications."

"It is probably something much more mundane. She did not seem agitated or afraid, merely unwilling to open up to me."

They did not linger on the trail. The snow that the wind had promised earlier had still not arrived, but the temperature had plunged and they were not wearing sufficiently warm clothing for a long ramble among the trees. They turned back after spending a few moments on one of the many observation decks throughout the sanctuary, and Teyla hoped they would be able to return, perhaps once the case was closed. Being cooped up in the office as often as they were, she relished any and all opportunities to enjoy the sharp, clean scent of growing things and the feel of grass under her feet. While the chill of Calgary meant that she would have to forego that pleasure, she wanted to walk hand-in-hand with Rodney and let her worries float up into the sky with the birdsong.

It was not until they were skirting the visitor's center on their way back to the parking lot that she realized the woods had been as quiet as death.

When they got back to the car, Rodney gave her the keys and pulled his laptop out of the backseat. "You drive - I need to double-check something," he told her.

"Would you like to check in to the hotel or should we visit a few more sites first?"

"Honestly? I want a steak as big as my head, a hot shower, and a bed for the next 16 hours. I'll settle for the steak and the shower, though."

She turned at the next light and headed into downtown while Rodney searched for some of the photos Cadman had uploaded. Teyla took her eyes off the road long enough to see what he had pulled up on the screen.

"That is the Anderson woman, is it not?" she asked as Rodney double-clicked one of the thumbnails.

"Yeah, I saw her in a couple of photos on one of those bulletin boards." He clicked on something else and made a displeased noise. "Didn't we get any other pictures of them? I could have sworn I saw... There! Look at that!"

He turned the laptop to face her. On the screen, she saw a group of men and women in casual outdoor clothing, with the now recognizable Inglewood visitor center behind them. Margaret Anderson, a tall woman with sunburned cheeks and red hair, was at the center of the frame and Ann was standing off to one side. A tall man with short black hair crowded in close to Margaret on the other, with one arm slung around her shoulders. Neither of the women were looking at the camera: Margaret's face was tilted down toward the ground, while Ann's gaze was directed at the man.

Teyla turned her attention back to the road just in time to see the driveway for their hotel flash past. "Who is the man?" she asked, and pulled into a parking lot across the street to turn around.

"Dr. David Mason, naturalist-in-residence for the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary," Rodney declared, and pulled the laptop back to face him. "And, according to the incredibly professional handwritten biography tacked up on the bulletin board under his photo, until about six months ago he was the executive director of a wildlife rescue center near Coeur d'Alene."

She nearly missed the driveway a second time.

Their hotel was more of a motel, and a crappy one at that, at least according to Rodney's standards. He spent the first ten minutes in the room inspecting the towels and sheets, then haranguing the front desk clerk over the phone until the woman agreed to send up a maid with new linens.

Teyla ignored most of his complaints as she powered up her laptop and unfolded the map across the desk. A quick search of her files turned up no further information on David Mason beyond his presence in several of the photographs of Margaret Anderson. Ann was also in each of them, often staring at the doctor. Not that Teyla blamed her; he was extraordinarily good-looking, with high cheekbones, well-muscled arms and legs, and dark, piercing eyes. In all but one of the photos, his mouth was stretched wide in a bright smile, his teeth straight and even.

"Here, smell this," Rodney demanded as he thrust a mini bottle of shampoo under her nose. "Does that smell citrusy to you? Why can't these places list the ingredients on their products?"

"It smells a bit citrusy, yes, but I put your shower things in my travel kit. You can get rid of that."

He dropped the bottle in the tiny trash can next to the desk and leaned in to peer at the folders she had open on her computer. "Find anything?"

"Dr. Mason does not appear to be connected to any of the other cases, including the ones in Idaho. I will send an email to Cadman to ask her to dig a little deeper if she can."

"Good, okay. I'll call Beckett and have him ask around at this wildlife center. There's a gap of almost two months between Mason resigning there and turning up here; maybe someone he worked with knows what he was up to."

Rodney went back into the bathroom with her travel kit tucked under his arm, presumably to replace any other offending toiletries and make his call. She listened to his half of the conversation without hearing much while she sent the email to Cadman and a short status report to Weir's attention, then checked her own inbox. There was an automated message from HERMIOD acknowledging her database request and a personal one from Novak saying she should have a preliminary projection ready by the end of the day. Another arrived while she was still logged in to the network: a one-line note from Halling that their supplies were ready for pickup at a local print and ship center. Attached was a scanned copy of a map with their hotel and the printing place connected by a thick black line, and a note scribbled along the edge that read _close enough so that even Rodney cannot lose his way_.

"Lorne and Beckett are headed out to the wildlife place now," Rodney called from the bathroom. "Can we go get some lunch?"

"I am ready whenever you are." She closed the lid of her laptop and stood, then raised both hands above her head and arched her back to feel the stretch of muscles beginning to protest their long journey. Her shirt pulled tight across her shoulders and chest, coming free from the waistband of her trousers to expose the skin of her stomach.

"Ah, on second thought," Rodney said from much closer this time, with a familiar tone coloring his words, "let's order room service."

\---

Teyla signed for the food while Rodney was in the shower. The bellboy eyed the length of her legs below the hem of her robe as he waited for her to clear the map off the narrow desk. She tipped him a few dollars, remembering at the last minute to use the Canadian loonies instead of the American bills she had grabbed first.

She felt like she had not eaten in days by the time she managed to wrest all the cling wrap off her plate, although it had been only a few hours since they had shared a snack in the Minneapolis airport. The hamburger was topped with a wilted piece of lettuce and too many condiments, but the beef was as juicy and thick as the menu had promised. She made short work of it then sat back on the bed with her laptop to read through the replies to the emails she had sent earlier.

By the time Rodney emerged from the bathroom dressed in warmer clothes than they had left the house in that morning, she was instant messaging with Novak.

"If your steak is too cold now, I will gladly finish it," she said, then laughed when Rodney hurried over to the desk with a panicked look on his face.

He sagged into the chair with a relieved sigh when he saw that the cling wrap was still intact over his lunch.

"You are too easy sometimes."

"I take all threats to my meals very seriously," he reminded her as he peeled the layers away from the plate. He picked up his knife and gestured at her computer. "Anything interesting?"

"Novak says she will have the report ready in a few hours, but early indications are that another attack may be imminent."

"How does she figure that?" he asked through a mouthful of steak. " _Oh_ , this is incredible. You want a bite?"

"No, thank you. The hamburger was more than enough." Teyla scrolled back through the chat history. "HERMIOD has apparently flagged a number of partial weather cycles and migration patterns that correspond to the attacks on this side of the border, and Novak is confident that the next run-through of the data will yield a definitive match."

Rodney hummed but seemed much more interested in finishing his steak than in Novak's methods.

"I also ran the diagnostic on the Sneakoscope and sent the file to Radek," she told him, ignoring his snort at the name everyone else used for what he still called the sensor-recorder. "Once I am dressed, we will have to pick up Halling's delivery before we go to the next crime scene."

He waved a hand at her, which she chose to interpret as a hurry-up gesture and signed out of the network. She dressed quickly, piling on the layers in anticipation of the temperature drop once the sun set. By the time he was finished with his steak, they were both armed to the teeth and the empty weapons case was locked away in the safe built into the wall of the closet. Rodney secured their laptops in his suitcase, with the locking mechanism that was a product of one of the more secretive arms of the Starr/Gates Group. He shouldered the camera bag and held the door for her as they went out.

It was a short drive to the shipping store where they collected the packages from Halling, then to the next location marked on her map: a narrow road that cut through a wooded area on the south bank of the Bow River. She circled the site, the blood still visible on the road when seen from the right angle, and took pictures of everything within view. Rodney fielded a call from Beckett, who had struck out in Idaho, then another from Sheppard asking for a sit rep.

By the fifth stop they made on their way through the city, Teyla was cold, tired, and more frustrated than ever. Night was advancing rapidly and it was becoming increasingly difficult to pretend she knew what to look for as they surveyed each site. As Rodney pulled the car over to the side of the road and engaged the hazard lights, she switched out the memory card in the camera and checked to make sure the flash worked properly.

He looked over when she sighed and rubbed the back of her neck where her muscles were starting to tense. "Let's make this the last one for tonight, eh? We should spend a couple of hours going through these photos and whatever Novak's managed to pull out of thin air, anyway."

"Fine," she agreed. "Although I do not believe these photographs will be of any use to us. I have not seen anything that differs from the original crime scene images, except for fewer leaves on the trees."

"I'm still not getting anything on the sensors either: no ley lines, no ectoplasmic residue, no strange energy signatures." He worked his jaw briefly then burst out, "Which means it's probably definitely not Michael. I mean, if he'd resurrected again, he'd be leaving a trail even Sheppard could pick up."

Teyla chose to ignore the slur on their supervisor's not inconsiderable skills as a tracker and investigator. "I believe you are right. I have not had a single premonition about this case, or about anything else," she qualified before Rodney could leap to the wrong conclusion. "The hair and fingerprints they found must be coincidence."

"Knowing the FBI, it was probably cross-contamination in the lab," Rodney grumbled as they got out of the car.

She had to force herself to be thorough in her documentation of the scene when all she wanted was to return to the warmth of the car. She paced the perimeter, taking care not to venture too close to the treeline, and worked in a spiral inward to the termination of the blood smear where it intersected the grassy shoulder. The flash lit up the scene in nightmarish bursts, illuminating Rodney standing a few feet away taking readings, then farther out. The wind picked up, setting the few remaining leaves to rustling, and she pulled up the hood of her coat.

She circled through the grass to get closer to the dark patch on the road and started to kneel down for another picture when something crunched under her foot. She angled the camera down and snapped a quick shot, using the flash to see that it was a large raptor pellet. A tuft of fur blew up on a draft and she crouched down to see what was left. The penlight she had tucked into her pocket threw a thin beam of light onto the ground, and Rodney jogged over.

"What did you find?" he asked, then made an exaggerated noise of disgust when she moved the grass aside for him to see. "Okay, if you wanted to look at vomit, we could have just gone down to one of the bars by the Saddledome."

"I only wanted to see what I had stepped on," she said and put the penlight away.

Rodney followed behind her, rattling on about avian flu and myriad other viral and bacterial dangers of handling animal byproducts as she finished her circuit of the site. By the time she snapped her last photo and replaced the lens cap, he had wound down to only a muttered "Ha! And what about Giardia? Wouldn't want to get that in the middle of a case. Or ever, really."

"Did you never dissect an owl pellet in biology class, Rodney?"

He sniffed. "Lab conditions are a completely different thing altogether. And, anyway, biology was what you took if you couldn't get into-"

"Could not get into what?" she asked. She could just barely make out the outline of his head and shoulders against the darker night sky.

He shushed her. "Did you hear that?"

Teyla wanted to protest that she had heard nothing when she noticed it: a faint noise above the wind. It sounded like drumbeats, slow and from not very far off. Rodney grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward the car. She lengthened her stride to match his and whispered, "What is it?"

Before he could answer, a high, piercing cry rent the air and something hurtled down to the pavement less than thirty feet away.

They ran for the car, neither hesitating for even a split-second. In some still-working corner of her mind, Teyla was proud of herself for letting her training overcome her instinct. The car was unlocked; they each wrenched open a door and threw themselves inside. Rodney had the keys out but had landed in the backseat, so she grabbed them from his hand and crawled over the gear shift to get behind the wheel. He threw himself over the back of the passenger seat and slapped the power lock switch. She had to fight back a hysterical bubble of laughter that he thought locks would keep the thing out as she jammed the key into the ignition and fired the engine.

"Can you see it?" Rodney asked, looking through the windshield. "Where did it go? Is it still in front of us?"

Teyla fumbled to turn on the headlights. When they flared to life, illuminating the road ahead, she caught only a glimpse of an immense dark shape, at least as large as their car, before it leaped off the pavement and wheeled up into the sky.

She turned to look at Rodney, who had collapsed against the backseat. "What was that?" she breathed.

He shook his head. His lips pressed into a tight line and his breathing was labored, but his hands were steady as he pulled his cell phone out of a coat pocket. "I think maybe we should call Cadman," he said faintly.


	2. Chapter 2

"No, it wasn't a tulpa, you moron! There were wings, and flying, and it was at least the size of the car. Oh, for the love of... _It's not a tulpa!_ If you would shut up for one- Get someone else on the line!" he shouted into the phone. "Well then, stop trying to prove you're smarter than me, which you're _not_ , and listen to what I'm telling you!"

While Rodney fought with Kavanagh, who was apparently the only member of the research department still in the office at that hour, Teyla maneuvered through the city streets. Her back ached from hunching over the wheel but she could not bring herself to stop watching the sky through the windshield. If Rodney had not heard the beat of its wings as it approached, or if they had been farther from the car... She cut off that train of thought before it could paralyze her.

"Four and a half meters, at least. No, _obviously_ we didn't get a good look," Rodney snapped. "We were a little busy trying not to get eaten."

The car was silent for a moment as he listened to what Kavanagh said. She tried to uncurl her aching fingers from around the steering wheel, hearing her knuckles pop as she did.

"I don't think it had- Teyla, did you see the thing's head at all?"

"Only a glimpse. It was a lighter color than the rest of the body and I did not see a beak."

"Did you get that? Yeah. Okay. Call us when you find something." He threw the phone down on the floor after disconnecting. "Idiot."

Normally, Teyla would try to rationalize with him; Kavanagh was a valued member of the research team, even if his personality left a lot to be desired. But tonight she had no patience for it. The adrenaline rush was starting to wear off and she could feel her muscles beginning to tremble.

Rodney sat forward and draped his arms over the back of the passenger seat as she turned into the parking lot for their hotel and turned off the car. She could just see him out of the corner of her eye as she scanned the lot and the sky above. His hair was sticking straight up like he had been worrying it with his hands and a flush lingered along his cheekbones. Her stomach gave sudden sickening lurch as she thought how close she had been to losing him out on that road.

He reached out and smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear. "You okay?"

She tried to smile and managed only a slight lift to one side of her mouth. "I will be better once we are safely indoors."

"Look," he said, then paused long enough that her throat closed and she leaned forward to check the sky again, certain that the creature was in sight. When she did not see anything out of the ordinary, she turned to face him. His eyes were downcast and his mouth twisted down on one side in a familiar grimace. She knew before he could speak again what he was about to say.

"We are _not_ going to split up," she said.

"We have to face the facts here. This thing is targeting couples! If we split up, we'll be far more likely not to attract its attention and-"

"And we will be without backup if it does show up again," she interrupted. "If that was the creature that we seek, I do not believe tonight fits its regular pattern. It has never taken people in the same place twice."

"I... I didn't even think of that. Even when the disappearances happen in the same city, they aren't even in the same neighborhoods." He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shuddered and said, "And as much as I never want to see that thing again, I really hope we're not dealing with two giant people-eating things wandering around out there. I mean, obviously I don't want to draw any conclusions until we hear back from Kavanagh or get online ourselves, but a predatory bird of that size - even if it isn't a supernatural creature - would certainly be capable of inflicting the kind of damage the blood stains indicate, as well as carrying off full-grown adults without leaving any traces."

"Not to mention that it seems to have targeted us, and the only connection to the case we have investigated so far was the bird sanctuary," Teyla added, thinking of Ann's nervous reaction to being questioned about the Andersons, even indirectly.

Rodney picked up her train of thought immediately. " _Her_?" he said in an incredulous tone. "Ann? You think she's connected to that thing?"

"Possibly. Or David Mason is the true connection and she knows something."

He heaved a sigh and reached forward to disengage the door locks. "Let's go up and see if anybody's got any more information for us."

They hurried across the dark parking lot, each lugging one of the boxes Halling had provided. The bright, gaudy lobby was a welcome sight and her shoulders sagged in relief as the automatic doors whooshed shut behind them. The single elevator was out of commission so they took the stairs, Rodney complaining all the way about the weight of his burden.

"What the hell did he send, lead cannonballs?" he huffed when they reached their floor.

"Anything is possible."

Rodney grumbled, "Someone needs to talk to him. There is such a thing as being _too_ prepared."

Once they were in their room, he dropped his box with a loud thud and flopped face-first onto the bed he had previously stripped of its comforter.

"Perhaps when we return home," she ventured, "you should renew your gym membership."

His only answer was a groan.

While he rested, she checked the voicemail for both of their phones and brought him his laptop. He propped himself up against the headboard with another groan and read the emails aloud as she unpacked the supplies from Halling.

"Novak finally sent her report, which is _completely_ useless, of course. Listen to this nonsense: 'HERMIOD calculates that there is an 81 percent likelihood that the attacks are perpetrated by a rogue dryad who becomes active in the days after unseasonably high temperatures.' I don't know why they let her keep working with that damn database; it's never been anything but wrong."

"It correctly identified that the Lavin you encountered in Buffalo was a gestational form of a Sumerian incubus," Teyla reminded him.

"Okay, you know very well that that entire situation was entirely misrepresented!" he began before being interrupted by the sound of a new message arriving in his inbox. "Oh, hey, Kavanagh's actually got something."

She decanted a plastic bottle of holy water into two flasks, then murmured a quick blessing over a new box of salt-packed silver bullets while she waited for him to finish reading the email.

"Huh," he said, finally. "You know anything about la lechusa?"

"I know that lechuza is Spanish for owl but I am not aware of any other use of the word."

She joined him on the bed and he tilted the computer so she could see the image he had pulled up. It was a crude black and white line drawing of a dark, hulking bird with a pale humanoid face. The eyes were huge and pitch black. The claws were long and wickedly sharp, and the artist had drawn something dripping from them and collecting in a puddle under its feet. There was nothing to indicate of the size of the creature. A shiver ran down Teyla's spine as she mentally compared the drawing with what they had seen in the glare of the headlights.

"So apparently Kavanagh's not entirely useless," Rodney said, "but not by much. He's managed to track down some newspaper clippings detailing sightings and encounters with this thing that aren't completely insane, but he's also included a bunch of crap about thunderbirds and pterodactyls."

"Let us concentrate on the lechusa then. Did he find anything that mentions ways to destroy it?"

"Ah, no. We should be so lucky. All I've got are a couple of quotes from a drunken hillbilly who says the lechusa ate his camper van, and..." He paused to scroll down the page. "And a picture some guy took with a Polaroid that looks more like someone's throwing a frozen turkey in the air. I take back what I said about these not being completely insane, by the way."

"Is the lechusa a wholly animal creature or is there a human component? Perhaps some sort of controller who sends it out to hunt?"

"His summary says there's a Mexican, or possibly Texan, legend that it's a witch who transforms herself into an owl but retains her face, but that's it."

"He specifically says witch?" At his nod, she asked, "Does that mean it is always a woman, or could a man have this ability as well?"

"Well, shape-changer legends are pretty much always about how evil women are. Ow!" He rubbed the spot on his arm that she had just punched. "I didn't say _I_ believed that crap!"

"I did not say that you did, but sometimes the lesson needs reinforcing."

Rodney harrumphed. "What I was _going_ to say is that there's no reason it couldn't be a man, although it does raise interesting questions about inheritable traits and whether the ability to shapeshift is dominant or recessive." He drifted off into silence, a slight furrow to his brow.

She took the laptop from him. "You can spend a full day of theorizing with Radek when we return."

" _If_ we re- Never mind. So, you think it's Mason?"

"I would not rule out either Ann or Mason at this point. It is clear that we provoked one or both of them with our visit to the sanctuary today. We should return tomorrow to see if we can speak with Mason."

"Yes, good idea. Even if he's not there, we can poke around the grounds to see if there's any sign of a bird that could star in its own SciFi Channel movie. Oh, that reminds me: did you set the DVR for the Friday night shows?"

"Let us just look to see if there is any way to incapacitate this creature. We can talk about your worrying attachment to implausible television shows later."

\---

The visitor center was locked and dark when they arrived early the next morning. A faded sign taped to the inside of the window directed them to a self-service information station at the nearest trail head and apologized for any inconvenience. A smaller, less faded sign was stuck to the door and reminded people that donations of any size would help to return the park to normal operating hours.

Rodney tried the door anyway, then shrugged when it did not open. "It works sometimes," he said. "You'd be surprised how many people forget to actually lock the door."

"Would those be the same people who frequently trip over Sheppard's feet when they attempt to avoid speaking to either of you?"

He narrowed his eyes at her and stalked off, but she noticed that he did not bother with a denial.

"Let's get going. I don't know if lechusas can only shift at night and I'd really rather not be wandering around the woods all day trying to find out."

They set off down a different path than they had taken the previous day. It wound back through the woods, away from the river and the few people braving the cold, grey morning for a few moments on an observation platform. Teyla took point and unzipped her coat far enough that she could easily withdraw her revolver should the need arise. Rodney trailed along behind her, waving the Sneakoscope and several other devices through the air. Every few feet or so, he called for her to halt while he recalibrated or pulled another device from his backpack.

As they slowly advanced deeper into the preserve, she kept her attention trained on the trees that surrounded them. The bare limbs waved in the wind and dry, yellowed leaves drifted down to skate across the gravel, but nothing else disturbed the peace of the morning. There were no squirrels or rabbits nosing through the underbrush, no birds wheeling overhead, none of the usual and comforting sounds of the world going about its business around them. Even the shift and crunch of stones under her boots seemed hushed and still.

"Do you find it odd that we have seen no birds in this bird sanctuary?"

"Hmm," was Rodney's only reply.

When she glanced back over her shoulder, she saw that he was scooping dirt out of the path and pouring it into a small evidence bag. "Have you found something?"

"Maybe. I think so, anyway. I noticed the ground was disturbed under that oak and it sort of continues here across the path and down into that ravine on the other side."

Teyla went to him, following the movement of his arm as he traced a line across the ground, then pointed off into the distance. From the new vantage point next to him, she could see what she had missed earlier as she walked over it. A shallow groove was worn into the dirt under the overgrown grass, mostly hidden by decaying leaves. Where it bisected the gravel, there was almost no trace of it - which meant it was old enough to have been disturbed by many pairs of feet as visitors moved through the sanctuary.

"Maybe three weeks old, you think?" he asked as he stuffed his equipment and evidence bag back into his backpack and shouldered it once again.

"Perhaps. There has been rain recently, and snowfall, so it could be less than that. Shall we make our way down to that ravine?"

Nodding, he cinched the straps of the backpack tighter where they ran back under his arms and stepped off the path. She fell in behind him, pulling her weapon from its holster as she did. Hearing the slide of metal on leather, Rodney pulled his own gun and gingerly started down the slope.

Teyla quickly overtook him as he picked his way from one small tree to the next, careful not to overbalance with the load on his back. She reached the bottom of the ravine and saw that the trail they were following turned and headed north, parallel to the path above. It zigzagged through the rocks and bushes and curved around a bend. A few feet beyond that, it turned sharply to the right when the ground started to slope upward again. She climbed up a few feet, high enough to see that it had not continued on the higher ground.

She slid back down the hill to where Rodney was bent over the grass at the end of the trail.

"I cannot see where it leads from here," she told him.

"I don't think it does," he replied and pointed to the ground around him. "The ground here is trampled, and see how there are fewer leaves over this area? I think this is where she transformed and carried off whatever she was dragging."

"It could be 'he'," Teyla reminded him.

Rodney waved a hand at her. "Whichever. Do you think we should keep moving in this direction?"

She tried to orient herself to the path they had been following earlier, then nodded. "It cannot hurt."

"Oh yeah, there's the enthusiasm we need," he said as he pushed himself to his feet.

They tramped through the woods for another hour, every once in a while picking up what they thought was a sign of the trail they had been following. Only once did they come within sight of one of the paths that wound through the sanctuary. Rodney pulled a Powerbar out of his coat pocket and broke it roughly in half, giving her the larger of the two pieces. She accepted it gratefully; the coffee and doughnut he had insisted on picking up from Tim Horton's before heading out had been barely enough to break her out of the morning fog.

She had not slept well the night before. She had tossed and turned for hours until Rodney mumbled into his pillow that he would tie her to a chair if she did not stop moving. She thumped him lightly on the back then moved to the desk to go through the meager information they had on confronting a lechusa. He stomped over less than half an hour later, complaining that her typing was worse than her thrashing, and pulled her back to the bed where she curled against him and called on every meditative trick she knew to slow her mind. As she started to slide into sleep, he draped a heavy arm and leg over her and snored in her ear until she dropped off.

Standing in a small clearing, she felt the exhaustion dragging at her limbs. She rolled her head back, listening to the crackle and pop of her spine and staring unseeing up into the canopy. "Rodney," she called to where he was standing, arms akimbo, staring off into the distance. "I think that perhaps we should begin making our way back to the-"

She broke off as she realized what was directly over her head.

"Oh, finally!" Rodney cried. "We're never going to find anything out here. We need some kind of topographic map of the terrain, and some compasses. Maybe even a GPS, though I don't know what good it's really going to do us, wandering around in the middle of nowhere. What are you looking at?" He craned his head back and cursed.

"My thoughts exactly."

Twenty or thirty feet above them, a massive nest spanned the top of a thick, gnarled cottonwood. She could not be certain but it looked like the pictures of bald eagle eyries she had seen while researching the lechusa legend. Half of the nest was starting to slip down out of the tree and huge holes were knocked all through the structure. She looked around the base of the tree, seeing broken sticks and chunks of dried mud scattered in a semi-circle under the nest. Large brown feathers, small white ones, and pellets as large as her fist were mixed in with the detritus.

"Could this have been storm damage? I have read that the size of the nests makes them vulnerable to high winds," she said to Rodney as she knelt to pick apart several of the pellets. Hollow bird bones, pieces of feathers, and delicate, nearly translucent fish scales were all that remained of the eagles' prey.

"There's no visible damage to any of the trees - no shearing or breakage, no bark stripped off, no scorching. I wonder if.... Eagles mate for life, right?"

Teyla considered his words, hoping she was following his logic as well as she was able. "You think it was the lechusa that did this?"

"Why not? It's obviously got some kind of problem with couples, and the lack of wildlife here in the park might explain why there were so many gaps between disappearances: it's been eating in its own backyard. You know, kind of like that vampire town we uncovered down in Texas who stuck to their own livestock - oh, what was that guy's name, the one with the camper van and the fake teeth...."

While he continued, they started hiking north again and soon reached the marshy bank of the Bow. They moved upriver, watching for signs of life around them. Teyla hoped to see one or both of the eagles gliding on thermals far overhead and felt ashamed of the sense of loss she felt for two birds when she had thus far managed only a desire to discover what had happened to the human victims.

The trees and undergrowth gradually thinned around them and ahead a large red brick house came into view. She remembered that it was the former home of the family who had donated the land for the sanctuary. It had been restored by the city, with shining white columns flanking the wraparound porch and new paint on every wooden surface she could see. A sport utility vehicle was parked at the top of the paved driveway. They jogged nearer and Rodney peered through the windows, then tried the driver's side door. It opened and he leaned in to rifle through the center console.

"Found a parking pass for the university and David Mason's insurance card," he told her when he emerged with a few small papers clutched in his hand. "Did you find something?" he asked when he realized she had moved away.

"The spoor is relatively fresh, no more than a few days old," she explained when Rodney joined her under a tree near where the driveway straightened. "I believe there may also be human remains in these pellets but I cannot confirm it here."

Rodney's entire face nearly turned inside out with disgust. "And you're _touching_ it?" he squawked. "Oh my God, you've been doing this the whole time we've been here, haven't you? I thought those were rocks you were picking up!"

Teyla wiped the offending hand clean on the grass, then used the other to unzip Rodney's backpack and pull a sanitary wipe from the package inside.

"Wait, _human remains_?" He leaned closer to examine the bones she had sorted into piles.

She pointed to the largest of the bones she had found. "These are from a human hand or foot, are they not?"

When he nodded, she pulled an evidence bag from his pack and flipped the bones inside without touching them. She stuffed the sealed bag into her pocket and pulled her weapon out again. Rodney tightened his grip on his own gun.

"We need to check inside the house," she told him, then moved quickly across the exposed yard and up onto the porch.

While she looked in through one of the windows, Rodney tried the front door. It swung open easily and he shot her a look. She nodded and shifted to a two-handed grip, then stood with her back against the wall to one side of the open door.

"David Mason?" Rodney called into the house. "We have a few questions about your work here."

There was no response. He signaled to her that he was going inside and she fell into step behind him. Inside, they spread out to clear each room as they passed through it. Everywhere they looked were signs of human habitation - magazines piled on an end table, takeout food containers on the kitchen counter, a shaving kit on the back of the toilet in the downstairs bath - but no one was home. Teyla started up the stairs when Rodney made a short chopping motion with his free hand and pointed at his right ear, then the floor. She froze and tilted her head to hear whatever it was that had caught his attention.

From below, there was a muffled banging noise. She would have dismissed it as coming from the plumbing or the furnace but it stopped suddenly and then repeated in the same pattern after a few seconds.

They ran for the front door and down around to the back of the house.

"There!" he shouted when they saw the entrance to the cellar. A large, heavy padlock, so new that it gleamed in the early afternoon light, secured the doors set on an incline close to the ground.

She took aim at the lock and Rodney moved back out of range of any flying metal or ricochets. She pulled the trigger and the lock flew apart.

Behind her, Rodney yelled, "Teyla, get down!"

She had just enough time to see something huge bearing down on her as she threw herself to the ground. She heard him fire and everything went dark.

\---

She awoke on a cold, bumpy dirt floor. Rodney was sitting by her knees, bare-chested and shivering. She tried to sit up, stifling a gasp as a lance of pain stabbed into her side.

"No, no, don't move." Rodney put a hand to her shoulder and gently pushed her back down to the floor. "I think I winged her, no pun intended, but not before she got you. It's not bad but I had to sacrifice my shirt to stop the bleeding and you hit the ground pretty hard. There's a knot on the side of your head but it hasn't bled at all, thankfully."

Teyla tried to looked down at herself. He had covered her in his jacket, presumably to ward off shock from the blood loss. Her head was swimming and it took a moment for her to speak. "Are we in the cellar?" she asked.

"It was the only place I could think to move you. I, uh, left all our stuff outside, though." He paused then said, sadly, "Including the guns. Every time I've tried to go up there, the lechusa's been within sight."

She closed her eyes and regretted it immediately as the floor tilted and spun. When she managed to open them again, Rodney's face was hovering above her.

"Okay, you really have to stop doing that," he said, a hint of panic in his voice.

"How long have I been out?" She tried to push his jacket off of her but he kept pushing it back into place.

"At least four or five hours. The sun's gone down outside and the temperature's dropping."

"Then stop trying to cover me and put your coat back on," she gritted out as she shoved the jacket to one side again. She pressed a hand to her side, feeling his sweater tied around her torso. Underneath that layer, she could feel his shirt, bundled into a makeshift bandage and stiff with dried blood. She thought longingly of the painkillers and antibiotics tucked into his pack.

He did not argue, for a change, and hurriedly stuffed his arms into the sleeves and zipped it closed. "David Mason's down here too. At least I think it's Mason. He's in pretty bad shape; dehydrated, bruises and lacerations, not making much sense. I tried to call Weir and Beckett but I'm not getting a signal down here."

Teyla pushed herself up onto her elbows, slowly this time and breathing deeply through her nose as the pain tried to overwhelm her. Rodney shifted to put an arm behind her, holding her upright. After a few minutes, she became accustomed to the slow burning throb in her side and could think somewhat clearly.

"We have to get him out of here," she said.

Rodney sighed. "Did you miss the part about that thing waiting to take off my head every time I looked outside?"

"We cannot stay down here indefinitely, and now that we know Ann can change into the lechusa during the day, there is no point to delaying. Help me up."

Together they shuffled over to the wooden steps that led up and outside. Teyla kept one arm wrapped tight against her wound and bit down on her lip whenever the pain flared, which was with nearly every movement. She clung to the rickety wooden post at the bottom of the steps as Rodney scrambled up and crouched just below the doorway.

"I don't see her," he whispered. "And my backpack isn't as far away as I thought."

"Do not go out there," she hissed.

He backed down from the opening. "I'd rather eat a key lime pie than go out there. Do you see any long poles or broom handles or anything like that?"

From her vantage point, she saw a push broom leaning against the wall under the steps he was crouching on. She gathered herself with a few deep breaths and then leaned as far as she was able in order to grab it. Rodney snatched it out of her hands once she had it clear of the stairs and crawled back up to the doors. He flattened himself on the top few steps and threw the head of the broom outside. After a few minutes of cursing, he managed to snag one of the straps and drag it back to their shelter.

She had to move quickly to get out of his way as he nearly tumbled back down the steps in his haste. She propped her shoulder against the post again and panted through the pain. Behind her, Rodney was tossing things out of the pack without a care for their cost or function. She heard something land with a thud and something else crack against it and winced. Before she could say anything, Rodney was wrapping his arms around her and easing her down to sit on the bottom step. He fumbled with a bottle and poured several capsules into her cupped hand, then broke open a blister pack of antibiotic tablets. Teyla dry-swallowed them all and slapped Rodney's hands away when he tried to untie the sweater.

"Leave it," she said. "We do not have the time."

"But I should clean it with the-"

"We must hurry, Rodney. Once we are away from here, our first destination will be the nearest hospital. But we must go _now_."

His mouth opened and closed a few times but he ultimately did not argue. She willed the painkillers to begin working their magic quickly and shakily rose to her feet. He hurried to scoop up most of what he had discarded and toss it back into the bag.

"Help me put the backpack on then help Mason to get outside," she directed.

When he walked away to the back of the cellar, she turned and mounted the steps. Her hand felt empty and useless without her weapon and she poked her head up far enough to see it lying in the grass a few feet away. She scanned the sky and the trees at the edge of the lawn, but the lechusa was not in sight.

She heard movement behind her at the foot of the steps. Darting a quick look back, she was shocked by the sight of David Mason. He looked nearly gray in the gloom and was sagging against Rodney's hold. His skin was stretched taut across his face and he looked like he had aged a decade or more since the photographs they had seen in the Andersons' file.

"I do not see the creature outside," she told them. "When you clear the steps, head for the truck. Are the keys inside?"

Mason mumbled something and Rodney translated. "On the floor on the driver's side."

She braced herself against the pain that leaped up to engulf her when she rose to her feet and darted outside, first to scoop her revolver off the ground then to head for the relative safety of the SUV. Rodney came panting along behind her, Mason making a long low moan as they crossed the lawn to the front of the house.

The truck was mere feet away when she heard the loud screech of the lechusa echoing from above. She dove forward and nearly vomited as she hit the ground and every nerve in her side screamed in pain. She fought through it and scrambled on her hands and knees to crouch down in the driveway next to the rear wheel. Rodney was pelting toward her across the lawn, Mason stumbling along beside him. Behind them, the lechusa was beginning to dive down, talons outstretched. It was dark brown, with a wingspan that blotted out half the sky between the house and the trees.

Teyla pulled up her gun and sighted the creature with one elbow propped on the rear bumper of the truck. The sight of Ann's face atop the feathered body, her skin mottled and dark with rage, rattled her and she missed her chance for a clean shot. It dropped lower behind the two men and screeched again. She shouted to Rodney who put his head down and used both hands to throw Mason forward. Mason skidded on his chest through the grass then scrabbled weakly across the pavement and collapsed beside her.

The lechusa drew even with Rodney and threw its wings and tail back to slow its flight as it flexed its feet over his shoulders. He screamed and dropped to his knees, rolling to the side and away from the talons. His jacket shredded in its grip and Teyla saw bright blood well up and start to cascade down his back.

She rolled away from the safety of the car, ignoring the burn in her side, and came up into a shooting position on her knees on the driveway. The kick of the revolver set her whole body to vibrating but the painkillers had kicked in enough to dull the wave of pain. The creature shrieked and flew backward in the air, wings beating uselessly as a dark bloom of blood spread rapidly down the bedraggled plumage of its chest and it plummeted to the ground.

She yanked open one of the doors and pushed Mason inside. He flopped boneless down onto the seat and she slammed the door behind him. She turned back to find Rodney still sprawled on the grass. Her heart flew up into her throat and she almost gave in to the panic clawing at her before she saw that he was slowly pushing himself up on all fours. She hurried over to him, keeping her gun trained on the spot where the lechusa had fallen.

He was on his feet by the time she was close enough to touch him. Heedless of the threat the lechusa might still pose, she threw her arms around Rodney hard enough to make them both moan in pain as they jostled their injuries. He ran his uninjured hand over her hair; she pressed a kiss against the pulse in his neck, trying not to bump her chin against his shoulder.

"Give me a couple of those painkillers and I will love you forever," he said and patted the backpack she still wore with his good hand. "I won't even mention what I'll do for you if you patch up this shoulder."

A giggle bubbled up through her throat and she did not bother to try to catch it back. She was shaky with adrenaline and relief at the feel of Rodney, big and solid and mostly whole under her hands. She released him finally and turned around so he could fish the small bottle out of the bag. When she did, she caught a glimpse of movement from the grass where the lechusa lay. She snapped the revolver up to shoulder height and trained it on the creature.

Rodney followed her gaze. "Of course it's still alive," he muttered.

Teyla walked slowly toward the creature. It struggled weakly, trying to get up. Ann's face was twisted in pain and her body was only part of the way back to human. Feathers straggled down the side of her neck and chest, then down her arms. Her bare legs ended in taloned feet that opened and closed uselessly in the grass.

"What's going on, where am I?" she whispered, then coughed and shuddered. Her chest was covered in blood seeping from the gunshot wound above her left breast and only rose and fell on the right side.

Teyla dropped to her knees and fumbled with the sweater tied around her, pulling it free and wadding it up against the hole in Ann's chest.

"Just lie still," she told her. "We are at Inglewood. Do you remember how you got here?"

Ann squinted up into the sky. She moved her lips but nothing came out, and then she was coughing again, gasping for breath, and red bubbles of blood spilled from her mouth.

Teyla pressed harder, willing the blood to stop soaking her hands. "Rodney, call for help!" she cried.

Ann's eyes rolled back and she started to convulse. Her chest was rising fitfully under Teyla's hands as she struggled for breath. Rodney fell heavily to the ground next to her, his left arm wrapped tight around his torso.

"They won't get here in time," he said, putting his hand over hers. "Hold her hand. Let her know she's not alone."

She shifted back, easing off the makeshift bandage as Rodney bore down in her place. She ran a hand down Ann's arm, the soft yet bristly feel of the feathers bringing tears to her eyes. She clutched the woman's fingers in her own, and smoothed back the hair and short feathers around her face.

Ann's convulsions were slowing and her gasps for air were farther and farther apart. It felt as if an eternity passed between each labored breath, until finally they ceased. Her hand fell slack in Teyla's grip.

Teyla bowed her head and whispered a short prayer to ease the woman's passage into what lay ahead for her. She was barely aware of Rodney rising and pulling her to her feet, then helping her into the truck. Gradually, she came back to herself, realizing that Rodney was repeating her name as he drove out of the park and onto the city streets.

"We need to find an emergency room," he was saying. "Can you do that? I need you to remember where the nearest hospital is. Are you with me?"

She dimly remembered marking one on the map and directed him through the streets as best she could. In the back seat, Mason groaned and she snapped to attention, turning to look at him. He was still sprawled face-down across the bench seat and his skin was paler than it had been at the foot of the cellar stairs.

"Mason, _David_ , can you sit up?"

He moaned in response and Rodney snapped, "Forget about him, you're bleeding again."

She looked down at her side, surprised to see the ragged tears in her flesh and blood spilling down to stain the already stiff fabric of her trousers. She pressed her hands against the wounds and tried not to gag at the hot, wet feeling of blood and bare muscle where skin should have been.

Rodney took his hand off the steering wheel long enough to push her back into her seat, then took the next corner so fast she could have sworn they tipped up onto two wheels. Within moments, he was braking under a canopy and tumbling out of the vehicle, yelling for help.

A virtual army of orderlies and nurses and one doctor in a clean white lab coat spilled out of the hospital's doors. They pulled Teyla out of the truck and lifted her onto one of the gurneys. She saw Rodney being lowered into a wheelchair, and someone opening the back door and reaching in to Mason. Lights flashed by overhead as she was wheeled into the building, down a long corridor, and into a small, curtained exam area. A nurse with a broad, dark face leaned over her and shouted questions, then another took her place and cut away what remained of her jacket and shirt. Something jabbed into the crook of her elbow and a burning sensation spread out in its wake and pulled her down into the dark.

\---

Rodney was asleep in the chair next to her narrow bed when she awoke. His left arm was in a sling, the shoulder bulky with padding under the scrub top he was wearing. She rolled cautiously to her side and studied him, looking for more damage that she might have missed. His hands were clean and white but her rusty dried blood still caked his nail beds. With a start, she realized that some of it was Ann's blood as well.

His face was peaceful, the lines between his eyes and on his forehead smoothed out in slumber. His neck was tilted at an awkward angle and his mouth was closed, relaxed. She wanted to reach across the space between them and run her fingers along the downward curve of his lips but the IV pinched uncomfortably under her skin when she tried it. She settled for stretching her arm down the length of her body, fingertips just barely brushing his where he had rested his hand on the mattress.

After a long while - she could not determine exactly how long; her internal clock was muddied by whatever drugs they had coursing through her bloodstream - he stirred and came awake in a rush. His head snapped to attention and he bolted half out of his chair before his surroundings caught up with him. He sat back with a soft smile and moved his hand to hold hers.

They did not speak. Teyla was content to let the silence spin out between them until she slipped back into sleep.

The next time she surfaced, Rodney was pacing by the window of the private room, cell phone pressed to his ear.

"I don't really care what you have to do to make it happen," he barked. " _Sir._ Just get us out of here. That detective's already been back twice and I can't hold him off much longer."

"Rodney," Teyla called, her voice froggy with disuse.

He spun on his heel, eyes wide and joyous as his anger melted away. "She's awake," he shouted into the phone, then hit a button and dropped it on the chair. He rushed over to her, taking her hand in his and rubbing a thumb over her skin. "Seriously, I already told you you have to stop doing that."

"I will try," she promised with a weak smile. She felt as though she had been dragged backward through a thousand hedges, weary and bruised from her head down to her feet. "How long was I out this time?"

"Oh, just a day. You did wake up a few times, mostly to tell me to pick up my socks or ask for more water."

She was not sure she believed him until she noticed that his eyes were red-rimmed and his jaw shadowed with at least a full day's growth of beard. "Fever?"

"And blood loss. Apparently my first aid skills aren't what they should be."

"You will get no complaints from me on that score."

"Exactly what I told them! Them being the Nurse Ratched wannabes who keep parading through here and criticizing my technique when they take your vitals."

"What do they know?" she mumbled and let her eyes drift closed.

"I knew there was a reason I married you."

She could hear more than a trace of a smug smile in his voice. "How is your shoulder?"

This time, there was a definite whiny tone to his words. "It feels like someone put a pair of vise grips in a fire then tried to tear off my arm with them. And I have to keep my arm immobilized, which means I have to do everything with my right hand. I should have been ambidextrous," he grumbled. He dropped into the chair, then winced and shifted to one side when he realized he had sat on his phone.

"What about Dr. Mason?"

"Ah, well, funny story there."

She waited for him to continue and, when he did not, opened her eyes to fix him with a look.

He squeezed her hand a little tighter and tried to give her a reassuring smile. He got about halfway to a grimace before giving up. "They started to treat him for dehydration and exposure - apparently he'd been down in the cellar for more than a couple of nights - but when the daytime nurse went in on her first rounds, he was gone. They think he slipped out during shift change."

"Why would he-"

"The, uh, detective who's been harassing me since you weren't awake to protect me? He told me this afternoon that Mason and Ann were related, half-siblings or fourth cousins or something. Of course, he also thinks that Mason skipped out because he's the one who shot Ann and attacked us."

Teyla tried to make the pieces of the story fit together but her mind was too thick to allow her to catch up. "But he did not attack us," she said slowly.

"No, that was definitely all Ann. But see, if they were related by blood, there's a chance that they were both able to effect the change. It's like I was saying the other night about inheritable traits. Odds are pretty good that this kind of ability runs in families, like with werewolves and that French thing Lorne's always running into. And, Mason sneaking off definitely points to that conclusion; why else would he run unless he had something to do with at least a few of the disappearances?"

He continued on, weaving together facts and suppositions in what she recognized as his first attempt at writing up a case report. She was too tired to follow so she played her fingers along the skin of his hand and wrist and let him talk until something caught her attention. "We are just going to let Mason go?"

"He's already gone, completely and utterly disappeared. Cadman's been running all of his account numbers and relatives and coming up empty. The only way we're going to find out where he's gone is if people start turning up missing again."

"That is unacceptable! We cannot sit back and let him start again in some other area!" The heart rate monitor started beeping faster and she drew in a few long breaths through her nose, trying to calm herself before someone came to investigate her condition.

"I don't like it either, but that was Sheppard's decree," Rodney said with a shrug. "You can take it up with him when he gets here. We're not giving up entirely, though: Bates and Lorne are going to stick close to Coeur d'Alene for a few weeks, see if they can pick up Mason's trail between there and here."

"John is coming here?"

"That was him on the phone, calling from the airport. Apparently he got confused by all the cowboy hats and couldn't find the car rental center."

"Rodney," she said in a warning tone.

"Sorry. No more Sheppard-bashing while he's here, I promise."

"That is a good enough start, I suppose. Will he be helping us to leave?"

"Yeah, he's waiting there for Beckett, who's getting in on the next flight from Denver. Here's something you probably didn't know, since I certainly didn't until a few hours ago: he's apparently licensed to practice medicine in like six provinces. He's going to harass the hospital into releasing us into his care and then it's straight back home."

He stared over her head, seeming to turn something over in his mind.

"You are not allowed to ask him to start prescribing you medications that can be filled for cheaper up here," she told him.

"Oh sure, leave it to you to take all the fun out of prescription drug trafficking."

She drifted off again into the medicated haze, still swirling her thumb over the soft skin of his wrist, in the middle of his long list of reasons why buying muscle relaxants and Epi-Pens over the border would be more cost-effective in the long run.


End file.
